New London – And so New London’s public safety concerns forge on uninterruptedly, now to the high school, where a dearth of police staffing has forced athletic director Phil Orbe to move home football games from Friday nights to Saturday mornings.

It is unfathomable that police officers have a presence at athletic events in every other school and every other town except here in the Dominion of Dysfunction.

Orbe had no comment to make about the decision, other than to confirm he made it. He did so in the wake of the recent Friday night home game (Oct. 21) vs. Windham.

There were no police officers at the game that night. I asked chief Brian Wright why, especially after some safety issues at basketball games last year became a cause celebre.

“We did not have an officer assigned solely to the game,” Wright said. “The school did attempt to hire in advance.”

It was later explained to me that police officers essentially volunteer (and are paid overtime) for gigs like athletic events and directing traffic at construction sites. It is not department policy to order officers for such duties, unless, as police captain Todd Bergeson said to me last week, “there is an imminent threat.”

Hence, if no officers want to work the games at the high school, there will be no officers specifically assigned there.

Sorry. This policy, among many other things in this city, must change. Here is why: If members of New London’s police department, city council, central office, mayor’s office and public schools do not understand and believe that public safety is the city’s top priority, they are miscast in their current positions.

All of them are at fault for this in some way. They need to put agendas, personal politics and any other whims away, get into a room and figure out how the public – in this case the people attending sporting events – will be kept safe.

Conway Gym will be packed this winter. The boys’ basketball team will be a league and state contender, playing a number of home games that figure to be competitive, spirited and well-attended against Crosby of Waterbury, St. Bernard, Ledyard, Harding of Bridgeport, Waterford, East Lyme and Windham, among others. A lack of police presence, particularly after the incidents of last season, is unacceptable.

I’m unsure whether there is a true lack of staffing in the police department or someone’s trying to send a message. But I remain respectful of their work. And I maintain that the “defund” crowd bears the unfortunate duality of being loud and wrong at the same time.

But then, some of that gets undermined when New London police union president Lt. Josh Bergeson finds the time – and worse, the motivation – to create the recent commemorative coin mocking Downtown New London Association president Barbara Neff. The coin was emblazoned with the image of a burning dumpster, stemming from staffing concerns and hardships associated with extended work days for officers at Sailfest.

Are there any adults left in the city who can gather, discuss and compromise? Or are we going to be idiotic, passive aggressive and irresponsible?

Does anyone care to be a leader?

Or are we content with finger pointing and weaponizing agendas and misinformation for partisan purposes?

I’m not sure city leadership grasps how the inability to properly staff an athletic event fortifies negative stereotypes against which many of us have bristled for years. Because do you know what they’re saying out in the burbs? Same old New London.

And in many ways, they’re right.

I’m not suggesting we need the sixth fleet inside Conway Gym this winter. But there must be some police presence to complement the school’s security team – just as there was a police presence outside the Garde last month for the Courtney/France/Blacker debate that didn’t draw half of what the basketball games will this winter.

I’m not really interested in your personal feelings about the police. They have a job to do. And they need to be doing it here in the 06320. So if the police, school officials and city officials would kindly gather, leave their egos home and fix this, we’d all be grateful. Even better: They’d actually be doing their jobs.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro